The impetus behind this effort was to create a platform for initial support to TEE professionals who may have a blind and low-vision (BLV) student in their courses. Specific examples, instructions, and applications for many of the commonly-used tools and techniques are included here as part of this overall effort to teach TEE concepts through socially relevant contexts by adapting older methods to facilitate new opportunities in our school systems for BLV youth.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Scott Bartholomew Wade GoodridgeNatalie ShaheenAnne Cunningham
Informal STEM learning experiences (ISLEs), such as participating in science, computing, and engineering clubs and camps, have been associated with the development of youth’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interests and career aspirations. However, research on ISLEs predominantly focuses on institutional settings such as museums and science centers, which are often discursively inaccessible to youth who identify with minoritized demographic groups. Using latent class analysis, we identify five general profiles (i.e., classes) of childhood participation in ISLEs from data
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Remy DouHeidi CianZahra HazariPhilip SadlerGerhard Sonnert
As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is conducting regional STEM workshops in partnership with local science museums, entitled NFB STEM2U, for blind youth [youth], grades 3 – 6 and 9-12. During the third regional workshop in Columbus, Ohio, the NFB operated two different programs simultaneously: one program for youth, and a second program for their parents/caregivers. A third program, for COSI (science center) staff, was conducted earlier to prepare the museum staff to assist with the youth program. A separate report will discuss
Collaboration efforts between educator preparation programs and children's science museums are important in assisting elementary pre-service teachers connect the theory they have learned in their classrooms with the actual practice of teaching. Elementary pre-service teachers must not only learn the science content, but how to effectively deliver that science content to a group of students. One university provided their elementary pre-service teachers with the opportunity to prepare and deliver science lessons to students in a children's science museum in south Texas.
In this article, we explore the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with a lens informed by the socioscientific issues (SSI) movement. We consider the PISA definition of scientific literacy and how it is situated with respect to broader discussions of the aims of science education. We also present an overview of the SSI framework that has emerged in the science education community as a guide for research and practice. We then use this framework to support analysis of the PISA approach to assessment. The PISA and SSI approaches are seemingly well aligned when considering
Both in common parlance and within the academy, the word “learning” has broad and varied meanings. On the street, we apply the same term to a child who, as a result of bitter experience, will no longer tease an older, tougher peer, and to those who achieve the highest Latinate degrees after many years of study at the University. In the field of psychology, “learning” was the major topic in America for fifty years, before it was replaced and almost consigned to oblivion, courtesy of the “cognitive revolution” of the 1960s (Gardner 1985). Now, with study becoming a lifelong enterprise, and with
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Margaret WelgelCarrie JamesHoward Gardner
Parent-child 'everyday' conversations have been suggested as a source of children's early science learning (Ash, 2003; Callanan & Jipson, 2001). If such conversations are important then it would be pertinent to know whether children from different family backgrounds have different experiences talking about science in informal settings. We focus on the relation between parents' schooling and both their explanatory talk in science-related activities, and the styles of interaction they use with their children. Families from different schooling backgrounds within one underrepresented group in
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deborah SiegelJennifer EsterlyMaureen CallananRamser Wright
Museums are favorite and respected resources for learning worldwide. In Israel, there are two relatively large science centers and a number of small natural history museums that are visited by thousands of students. Unlike other countries, studying museum visits in Israel only emerges in the last few years. The study focused on the roles and perceptions of teachers, who visited four natural history museums with their classes. The study followed previous studies that aimed at understanding the role teachers play in class visits to museums (Griffin & Symington, 1997, Science Education, 81, 763
In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews, electronic communications, and drawing prompts. We found that our two participants referenced as important the ISE experiences in their development of classroom science identities that included resilience, excitement and engagement in science
The article focuses on the survey titled, "Use of Informal Education Resources in Technology and Engineering Education" (ITEEA) on the informal science education (ISE) resources. In the survey, half of the respondents were not familiar with the term informal education (IE), even though it was clear by their responses to other questions. All of the respondents who held Doctorates were familiar with the term IE. Most of the respondents with only a Bachelor's degree were not familiar with the term IE. This article includes survey questions.
In this case study, Carey Tisdal, internal evaluator at the St. Louis Science Center (SLSC), discusses the use of teacher response groups in the development of the school visit program at SLSC. This paper uses a case method to describe: (1) the context of policy and program issues from which the study arose, (2) the reasons this specific method was selected, (3) the development of a data base, (4) how the method was implemented to recruit and interview teachers, and (5) an analysis of the limitations and benefits of the methods.
If we truly wish to promote science or STEM education, then it would seem that the joining of resources and expertise from the communities of formal schooling and informal science education institutions or ISEIs (museums, aquariums, and the like) would be an important early step. Yet creating such connections between teacher and museum remain a challenge for both teachers and informal educators. This study employs a communities of practice lens (Wenger, 1998) to provide a deeper explanation for the challenges inherent in those programs and experiences (field trips, outreach programs, teacher